The epic of the odyssey through Emily Wilson's translation

Welcome! Emily Wilson's 2017 translation of The Odyssey is a absolute landmark in modern literature.

To help me tailor our discussion, could you tell me a bit about your background with Homer's The Odyssey? Have you read other translations before, or is this your first time approaching the epic?

I know the main plot points, but I'm new to Wilson's version.

It is great that you already know the plot, because it lets us focus on what makes Emily Wilson's approach so fresh.

Published in 2017, Wilson's version is the first complete English translation of The Odyssey by a woman. That historical milestone gained immense attention, but her translation is equally ground-breaking for how it reshapes who gets to speak and how the epic sounds.

Continue to her style and iambic pentameter

To give the epic its rhythm, Emily Wilson chose —the same classic ten-syllable meter used by Shakespeare and Milton.

Earlier translators often used elaborate, archaizing language to make the poem sound ancient and grand. Wilson intentionally stripped away that high-flown rhetoric, aiming for plain, natural phrasing that keeps the story moving briskly.

How does her meter compare to the original Greek?

Ancient Greek epic poetry was composed in dactylic hexameter, a rolling, six-beat rhythm that sounded grand and sweeping to ancient listeners.

Wilson deliberately switched to iambic pentameter because dactylic hexameter can sound unnatural or bouncy in English. By using the ten-syllable rhythm of Shakespeare, she captures a familiar, conversational pace while maintaining a steady musical pulse.

Continue to key themes like violence and power

Moving past the rhythm, Emily Wilson's approach fundamentally shapes how we see the story's core conflicts. One of the most striking aspects of her translation is how directly she confronts themes of violence, power, and social class.

Where traditional translations often used elevated, softened language to cushion the epic's brutality, Wilson uses bare, unambiguous terms. For instance, where previous translators often chose delicate words like "maids" or "servants," Wilson explicitly uses the word to describe the captive workers in Odysseus's household, keeping the stark reality of ancient social hierarchies front and center.